Samantha Fish sings (& plays) the blues at Cabot tour stop

Half of Samantha Fish’s fans are likely rock ’n rollers who got into the blues, the other half are the other way around. “We get hung up too much these days on genres, on ‘Where does this fit in’,” she said. “But at the end of the day, people want to hear good music played with conviction. If rock people are learning about blues, great. And if blues people are head banging, I’m down with that.”

A fiery and very modern blues artist, Fish is currently headlining a tour for the Ruf label, which hits the Cabot in Beverly on Sunday night (she was formerly with the locally-rooted Rounder label). Appropriately enough, the tour is co-headlined by Canned Heat, who helped create the blues-rock trend in the late ‘60s; they still have the drummer who played with them at Woodstock.

Growing up in Kansas City and drawn to guitar at a young age, Fish heard plenty of blues and rock. “I was always trying to dissect the guitar solos that I heard on the radio. And where do you hear guitar solos? Mostly in classic rock, Boston and Guns ’n Roses. I had the AC/DC live video, and then somebody gave me the one of Stevie Ray Vaughan at Austin City Limits. I loved how he was sweating it with a trio, so I’d go to the record store and randomly buy blues. Another eureka moment for me was when I went to the King Biscuit blues festival and saw the Fat Possum artists (known for elder juke-joint artists Junior Kimbrough and R.L. Burnside). To me that mixed the raw rock n’ roll thing I loved with loose, gritty blues, and I just devoured it.”

She’s since played plenty of straight-ahead electric blues, but taken side trips into rock and funk; her last album was a duo set with outlaw country figure Jesse Dayton (produced by punk bluesman Jon Spencer, no less). “Words like concept and strategy never come into it — It’s more about who you’re working with and what the energy is in the studio that particular day. I did want to make a collaborative record, but it became a special thing with Jesse. He wasn’t scared to do anything,”

It also doesn’t hurt that she’s moved home to another musical hotbed, New Orleans. “I just had this long term love affair with the place since I was a kid. And when I was pulling a band together, so many of them were based there that it became more cost-effective to just move. Beyond that, it’s a poetic place and there is so much happening there that would inspire any creative mind. And I’m sure I’ve been influenced by some of the locals.”

Even when she’s not playing, Fish is hard to miss; thanks partly to the dramatic eye makeup that has become her visual trademark. “I started out dressing in vintage clothes, but everything I do becomes exaggerated over time. The cat-eye probably started because my makeup skills aren’t that good, and if you overdo one side you have to do the other. But I enjoy having some fun with it — just being dramatic and doing a little show business.”